AWA – Arguement – 10 Mar

The following is taken from the editorial section of the local newspaper in Rockingham.
"In order to save a considerable amount of money, Rockingham’s century-old town hall should be torn down and replaced by the larger and more energy-efficient building that some citizens have proposed. The old town hall is too small to comfortably accommodate the number of people who are employed by the town. In addition, it is very costly to heat the old hall in winter and cool it in summer. The new, larger building would be more energy efficient, costing less per square foot to heat and cool than the old hall. Furthermore, it would be possible to rent out some of the space in the new building, thereby generating income for the town of Rockingham."

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The paragraph tried to persuvade its readers to believe that a new built modern town hall could save a substantial amount of money. Yet the reasons listed by the author are not persuvasive enough to convince people to vote for this idea.

The first thing it mentions is that the town hall is too small for the employees the the town has hired in the town hall. This could possibly lead us to doubt that the money mainly spent on the town hall is not on the site, but on the salary that paid to these over size staff. Thus maybe to cut the unnecessary man power is a better way to save money for the town.

The second reason about maitenance fee is reasonable at the first glance, yet after given a look in depth, there at least two things that this author hasn’t considered. One is that the cost of toring down the old buidling and replacing it with a new and larger one could be unexpectly high, which might possibly cover the maintenance fee for the old site for couples of years. That could make the replacement worthless regarding to the perspective of saving money. On the other hand, the editorial is proposing a much larger building than the old one. If it is efficient enough, the maintenance fee per square might be cheaper. The larger building, however, could cost more that old town hall simply because of the size. Plus, the town need to employ much more people for a larger mansion, and that also adds the totall cost.

Last but not the least, renting out the office of new building is a way of making profit, yet we are not aware of how easy could this business be conducted in this town. Yet as a century-old town hall, it’ll make much more sense to develop the site as a tourism point for the outsiders. The income of tourism could also generate income for Rockingham, and the margins might be even higher that building a new one and then renting it out.

To wrap up, the editorial need stronger surpport for the idea of town replacement plan, otherwise, cutting employees number and developing tourism resouce based on the historic build could be better ways to save money for Rockingham.